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superpositioners
Superpositioners are a Collective of Experimenters, Artists, Designers & Techies fascinated by moving......read more

roman kirschner
In this exclusive interview with flasher Kirschner talks about his project 'Roots' - "A world with a......read more

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[random inspiration]

the white noise - "an electric storm"
One of the only advantages of obscurity granted by the world to any experimental artist, for a lover of music or literature or any art form, is to know that this very same world still hides amazing records and books and photographs, and that one day, all of a sudden, one comes across such hidden treasures, and may reshuffle the shelves in one's mind and rearrange historical lineage. For example, in poetry, Mina Loy was such a discovery to me, and I had not imagined the modernist lyric in English had produced such an exuberant body of work. And it was not long ago that I found information on a band called The White Noise, whose debut album had been released in 1969 by Island Records. The album is called "An Electric Storm", and last night I finally got a hold of the album itself in an old record store. Formed in London, The White Noise were David Vorhaus, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson. All three had unlikely backgrounds, Vorhaus studied classical music and electronics and Derbyshire had studied mathmatics and music, and had gone on to work for the UN and later become a trainee studio manager for the BBC, after trying to get a position at Decca and hearing from them that "they did not employ women in their recording studios." At the BBC, she began to work in the radiophonic workshop where she met Brian Hodgson, and they worked together as a group called Unit Delta Plus, with the objective of creating and promoting the use of electronic music in film, TV and advertising. With no computers at hand (this is 1966), the group (also joined by Peter Zinovieff), worked with tape, homemade instruments, and the manipulation, splicing, looping of sound. David Vorhaus attended a lecture given by Unit Delta Plus, and approached Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson with the desire to work with them. This was the beginning of The White Noise. Working with collage, the first prototypes of synthesizers, and experimentations with the vocals (singers invited were John Whitman, Annie Bird and Val Shaw), The White Noise produced, realised and released "An Electric Storm", a groundbreaking record which would remain a secret tip among the lucky ones to find it (the album made no money for Island and it is hard to get a hold of the rare record), coming to hit waves of influence up to our days, in groups such as Broadcast or Stereolab. Experimental and disturbing work which manages to remain pop and beautiful, this dreamlike artifact of electronic music has some of the loveliest tracks in the history of electronic music, with beautiful short pop-pearls of 3 minutes, like "Love Without Sound" or "My Game of Loving" (with its sound outtakes from an electronic and flesh orgy) or "Here Come The Fleas", and yet, on its B side, carry such dark poems as "The Visitation", with its 11 minutes of emotional landscaping, substituting the gasping for breath and sexual moaning on the A side for crying; and the 7 minutes of "Black Mass: Electric Storm in Hell (The White Noise)", a rather scary song. The White Noise would break up after this first record, and the work would be carried on by David Vorhaus alone, releasing albums called simply "White Noise" and numbered I, II, III, IV and V. Derbyshire and Hodgson would return to their work in electronics and music. Listening to an album like "An Electric Storm" can show us how far some artists are able to take their experimentations without breaking the communication with the viewer/reader/listener. With the Moog becoming more widely available, the work with synthesizers became more common and the radiophonic workshop experiments of The White Noise turned obsolete very fast, but "An Electric Storm" remains as a groundbreaking dark pop artifact. Get a hold of it. And lose some sleep. - Ricardo Domeneck

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NEWS

02-15-08 EU Thinks About Turbocharging Musician Royalties The European Union proposes extending musicians royalties for 95 years as in the U.S., up from 50 years, under a plan to avoid cutting off income for artists as they retire. Bloomberg.
02-15-08 Suicide As A Piece Of Art A woman named Jane started a blog and said whe was going to kill herself in 90 days. She got a web following. Turns out, the blog is a kind of "art" project... "It was meant for me and (what I ignorantly thought would be) a small number of people who might find it on BlogSpot. Gawker.
02-15-08 The Underground Theatre Of Belarus Their performances are forbidden by Belarus's restrictive regime, which controls every aspect of life in the country, in a manner that has barely changed since the days when it was part of the Soviet Union. So the Free Theatre has to keep one step ahead of the authorities. The Guardian.
02-15-08 The Art That Looks Like Other Art (Is It Wrong?) Work by well-regarded Seattle artists appears uncomfortably similar to that of other artists. Idea plagiarism? What's wrong and what's right in terms of originality and art is a matter of serious debate. If no one did anything wrong, then how can a work of art be tainted? Which is worse, theft or ignorance? The Stranger .
02-14-08 Venus banned from London's underworld "London Underground decides image of unclothed Venus is likely to offend commuters" GUARDIAN.
02-14-08 The Gemeentemuseum Presents Picasso in The Hague Covering The Artist's Entire Career "If anyone deserves to be called the �artist of the twentieth century�, that man is Pablo Picasso (1881 � 1973). The forthcoming exhibition Picasso in The Hague covers his entire career and reveals his untiring urge to experiment. The works on show will include not only oil paintings, but sculpture, drawings, prints and ceramics." ART DAILY
02-14-08 Brown and Putin withdraw their patronage as Russian loan show opens "President Putin and Prime Minister Brown have withdrawn as patrons of the Royal Academy (RA) exhibition which opened last month." The Art Newspaper
02-14-08 Museum of Moving Image paused for upgrade A massive renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image will shutter the New York facility for an extended period. YAHOO
02-13-08 Violinist Trips On Stage and Wrecks His Stradivarius Leaving the stage at London's Barbican, violinist David Garrett, 26, one of the UK's foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: he tripped and landed on his violin. The Independent .
02-13-08 American Group Says Canadian Copyright Laws Lacking Canada has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the minimum global standards of the WIPO internet treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago. .CBC .
02-13-08 Educational Television? Doesn't Exist Aric Sigman says that all TV is bad for young kids. The phrase 'educational television' was, of course, invented by people who make television. To me it's an oxymoron. The Globe & Mail.
02-13-08 Fighting Back Against Britain's Ugly Statues From the beaches of southern England to the thoroughfares of London, the fightback against 'bad' public sculpture in the UK has begun. In recent years an unprecedented number of tasteless statues (with the rare exception, such as works by Antony Gormley) have appeared across the country. The Art Newspaper.
02-13-08 Movable Art - Not In Canada The Canadian government proposes to end a service that transports art beten museums across the country. Museums worry that traveling exhibitions will be dramatically curtailed. National Post.
02-12-08 Obama Beats Clintons To Win Grammy Obama "beat both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to win best spoken word album for his audio version of his book The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream." Houston Chronicle
02-12-08 Dramatic Swiss Art Robbery Nets Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Monet Four paintings by Van Gogh, C�zanne, Degas and Monet worth an estimated SFR180m (�84m) have been stolen from a museum in Switzerland in what police today described as a "spectacular art robbery". The Guardian
02-12-08 Where US Presidential Candidates Stand On The Arts The arts aren't an issue in this year's election, and it's even difficult to find out what the candidates' positions are. But here's a helpful guide... DancerUniverse
02-12-08 Publisher To Begin Giving Away Free Books HarperCollins has decided to beging offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site. The New York Times
02-12-08 Virtual Mayhem, Destruction - An Art Form? "For my money, what makes games unique among all other forms of entertainment is that they allow us to experiment with insanely dangerous physics. Games are only arena of modern life in which otherwise responsible adults are permitted to smash expensive things all to hell, purely for the sheer joy of it." Wired
02-12-08 Virtually Dance "Understanding that people are often almost more fascinated in how dancers work and how choreography gets made than they are in the finished product, Misnomer.org has already tried a new approach to posting videos of its work online." Voice
02-11-08 Is The Art Market Immune From The Recession? The financial markets ae in turmoil. But "most areas of the market seem to be immune from the anxieties that have been taking hold of the outside world." International Herald Tribune
02-11-08 When Everyone's A Writer... Creative writing as an area of study is booming in Australia ... Australian universities now offer more than 70 of these courses. There are numerous mature-age students willing to pay universities $100-plus an hour to sit in a postgraduate writing class. But "the creative writing boom throws up striking paradoxes." The Australian
02-11-08 What's Holding Back Canadian Movies? "Without subsidies or quotas, what's the incentive for theatres to show an unknown Canadian film instead of a Hollywood movie with more obvious box office potential? They'll say 'We can play a blockbuster with no advertising, no work, do nothing and everyone will come, or we can take your stupid Canadian movie and no one's going to come.' " The Globe & Mail (Canada)
02-11-08 Lit Stars Sign Up To Write 15-Minute Operas "Out go the big budgets, lengthy run times and large venues. But in come the stars from the world of literature and music, who have been asked to produce 15-minute operas which will sit beside each other at sold-out shows in small theatres in Glasgow and Edinburgh early next month." The Independent (UK)
02-11-08 Leading Pakistani Artist Murdered Ismail Gulgee, one of Pakistan's most senior and internationally renowned artists, was discovered brutally murdered along with his wife Zareen and a maid in their house in Karachi. The Art Newspaper
02-08-08 Time Running Out For Oscars? Academy Award organisers have said they are 'running out of time' in the search for a deal to avoid the Oscars being hit by the Hollywood writers' strike, even as the guild prepares to present a tentative deal to its members this weekend. BBC.
02-08-08 Are We Over Renzo Piano? Forget the Bilbao Effect. It's not Frank Gehry who has ridden the U.S. museum-building boom, it's Renzo Piano." Piano's new addition to the LA County Museum of Art opens to the public next week, and James Russell says that the architect's work is all starting to look the same, and what used to seem innovative now just seems repetitive. Bloomberg.
02-08-08 The Strange Cultural Populism Of Variety Shows There was a time when high- and middle-brow culture coexisted on television, in the form of wildly popular variety shows that showcased everything from dancing poodles to orchestras to The Beatles. Those shows mirrored and even led a mass pop culture that was more populist than what we have today. City Beat.
02-08-08 Naxos Net Gamble Pays Off Classical music's scrappiest record label proved to be its most prescient when the internet revolution came upon the world. What put Naxos ahead of the game, and what did founder Klaus Heymann see in the industry that convinced him to make a huge online push when he did? The Guardian.
02-08-08 Argentina Looks To Build On Film Success Argentine cinema has carved out a niche at arthouses, taken fest kudos and plied styles like minimalism and comic bathos with taste... But now returns are narrowing as costs rise for studio time, wages and promotion. Debate is raging within the industry over how best to keep Argentina competitive in a Hollywood-dominated world. Variety.
02-07-08 Writers' Strike May Have Long-Term Impact On Post-Production "Insiders calculate that the number of post industry members who have lost their jobs or been put on hiatus is in the thousands. That figure includes great numbers of freelance workers such as editors, assistants and post coordinators as well as staffers at postproduction facilities." Yahoo
02-07-08 Want To Save Money? Die "It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars." Wired
02-07-08 Music Under The Influence - Drugs, Booze, Everywhere There's a shocker! A new study "calculated that Americans from ages 15 to 18 listening to 2.4 hours of music a day hear 84 references to substances daily and more than 30,000 annually. About two-thirds of the references put drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor." The New York Times
02-07-08 It's A Hit! (And You'll Get Your Money Back In As Soon As Three Years!) "If a show with a cultlike following, stellar reviews, a not insurmountable $1 million capitalization cost -- and after some adjustments, a $50,000 weekly running cost -- couldn't turn a profit, then what could?" The New York Times
02-07-08 Spanish Mayor Proposes Paying Kids To Read They would get one Euro for each hour reading. "A recent European Commission study showed 31 per cent of Spain's students were leaving school early. Spanish students were also some of the worst at reading in Europe, with 21 per cent of 15-year-olds having difficulties, compared with the European Union average of 19.8 per cent." The Globe & Mail
02-06-08 Gallery Sues To Get Warhol Back "An Andy Warhol painting stolen from a Manhattan art gallery a decade ago has resurfaced at Christie's auction house, and on Tuesday the gallery sued to have it returned. The painting, one of Warhol's Dollar Sign portraits that was created in 1981, is worth at least $100,000." MSNBC
02-06-08 Audiences Stunned To Find Sweeney Todd A Musical "Nowhere does the [movie trailer] mention the fact that Sweeney Todd is a musical. In fact, it goes out of its way to conceal the fact that the movie is entirely sung, save for a few snippets of dialogue... Stung at paying to see a collection of tortuously constructed Stephen Sondheim tunes when they were expecting a gory Gothic thriller, a fair proportion of cinema audiences has been walking out of Sweeney Todd." The Guardian (UK)
02-06-08 How Pixar Became A Standard Bearer Pixar is well known for having changed animation forever, by hiring the top talent in the business and spending lavishly on the best technology money could buy. Of course, relying on computers inevitably means dealing with their obsolescence, which often comes astonishingly quickly. The Independent (UK)
02-06-08 Perhaps He's Referring To Ocean's Thirteen "George Clooney, one of Hollywood's most bankable stars who earns up to �15 million a movie, has taken a swipe at the film industry, saying he believes the golden age of cinema is dead... Clooney places the glory years of cinema firmly between 1964 and 1976 when he says studios produced almost a masterpiece a month." The Telegraph
02-06-08 Bush Proposes "Zeroing Out" Public Broadcasting Funding The Bush administration wants to hack federal funding for public broadcasting by more than 50% and possibly zero out the budget in as little as two years. Variety
02-05-08 When Pop Culture Supports The Arts Why not sell tickets to rock concerts and use the proceeds to underwrite the classical end of your business? It makes sense on paper, and it's worked before." And yet, "regional symphony orchestras and theater companies are increasingly finding themselves squeezed off the stages of performing-arts centers by high-grossing Broadway road shows. The Wall Street Journal.
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